Late-drilling needn’t mean a huge yield penalty. CPM finds out how tailoring nutrition can help boost the biomass that turns into yield. In early spring (Feb-Mar), there’s a final opportunity to influence and recover crop biomass. By Lucy de la Pasture Delayed drilling has become established as one of the most influential cultural control methods to combat blackgrass. Keeping the seed in the bag until mid-Oct means there’s more opportunity to make the most of stale seedbeds, reducing the impact of blackgrass on the crop. There’s also the added bonus that the much-relied upon pre-emergence herbicides tend to work better in the slightly cooler, moister soils of late autumn. But there’s a down-side to later-drilling, yields are generally lower and more variable. Yara’s Mark Tucker explains that by tailoring nutrition in early spring, there’s a golden opportunity to claw back lost yield potential and it’s a chance that’s being widely missed by many growers. Mark Tucker suggests increasing early nitrogen rates on backward crops to stimulate early growth in an attempt to recover biomass. What is the impact of later drilling? Approximately 1M ha in the UK is infested with blackgrass, and the vast majority of growers are…
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Technology is moving at a break-neck pace and is set to help improve the timing of fungicide applications. CPM learns more about new developments in in-field diagnostics and the secrets they can reveal. The big problem many growers face is not knowing whether they’re in a protectant or curative situation. By Lucy de la Pasture For wheat growers, the latent phase of septoria has always created a challenge when it comes to septoria control. It represents a time when the septoria pathogen has infected leaves but none of the tell-tale symptoms of infection are visible, explains Bayer’s Jennifer Watson. That means it’s a best guess as to whether fungicide is being applied in a truly preventative or a curative situation. Although septoria modelling has been well developed and septoria risk data has been available for several years, the use made of this forecasting information has been limited. But it’s about to take a quantum leap in its helpfulness to agronomists, thanks to the development of some nifty in-field diagnostics. New LAMP (Loop mediated isothermal amplification) technology is being utilised in Bayer research at Fera and is investigating the latency of septoria. The work has…
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During our seminar programme at BP2017, Dr Anne Bhogal of ADAS discussed the recent press coverage that soils have received – after the state of British soils was identified as a potential threat to agriculture in this country.

At BP2017, AHDB Potatoes officially launched its ‘Influence the Influencer’ campaign to the industry. The activity will begin by identifying people who talk to varied and wide-ranging audiences. Next, we will determine their knowledge on potatoes, before providing them with appropriate data, content and information which they can then use in the course of their work or pass on – in the case of doctors to their patients, food tweeters to their followers or journalists to their readers.

In December, we finished the first phase of the activity – our ‘discovery’ phase – which included interviewing stakeholders within AHDB, our partners across the potato industry, and stakeholders who don’t work within the potato industry but encounter potatoes or potato products in their day-to-day work.

Potatoes remain an extremely popular choice in British homes. As revealed in our seminar at BP2017 – more people buy potatoes than toilet roll!

Nonetheless, the consumer landscape is dynamic and a wide range of factors influence consumer choices. Quality, price, promotions and pack size all come into play for shoppers. Once at home, when deciding what to cook and eat, consumers are looking for meals that can satisfy multiple needs, including enjoyment, health and convenience.

Recently, there has been an increasing number of farmers uploading their data onto our new Benchmarking tool – Farmbench. This is a cross-sector web-based programme that is available online and easy to register onto and get started.

Just when farmers are getting the hang of rodenticide stewardship rules, introduced mid-2016, a new study by Reading University confirms that rats in some parts of the country are resistant to some of the most widely-used poison baits.

The report states that the study “shows the massive extent of L120Q resistance across the whole of central southern England.” Co-author Dr Colin Prescott explains that L120Q is the most severe form of resistance identified to date, effective against first generation anticoagulant rodenticides and one or more of the second generation group.

“Moreover, this doesn’t mean the rest of the UK can relax, because lack of sample availability means we just don’t have the data,” he says. “Another concern is that most rats with L120Q resistance carry the gene from both parents. Where this occurs, it suggests most or even all rats with some susceptibility have been eradicated by widespread use of resisted rodenticides, leaving a population of resistant pure-breds.”

The report was commissioned by the Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use (CRRU) under its stewardship regime remit to an HSE-led Government Oversight Group (GOG).

CRRU chairman Dr Alan Buckle says the difficulty for farmers, of course, is knowing the resistance status of rats on their own units.

The red meat levy bodies in England, Scotland and Wales have announced a major programme of joint activities to be paid for by a ring-fenced fund of £2 million of AHDB red meat levies.

An agreement by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), Hybu Cig Cymru, (HCC) and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) will see a range of activity delivered in a three-way collaboration starting in 2018.

This has been developed as an interim arrangement while a long-term solution is sought on the issue of levies being collected at point of slaughter in England for animals which have been reared in Scotland or Wales.

The three organisations share an immediate joint commitment to collaborating to ensure levy payers across Great Britain benefit from the activities delivered using the £2 million ring-fenced fund.

The agreement announced today (06 February 2018) follows 12 months of talks between the three bodies after the parameters of the fund were set out by Ministers early in 2017.

This established that AHDB would set aside a ring-fenced sum of £2 million to support a programme of activities benefitting cattle, sheep and pig levy payers in Scotland, Wales and England.

Jane King, Chief Executive of the AHDB, said: “The three GB levy bodies share many challenges and the simple fact is we can more effectively address them through working together.

Netherlands-based Proagrica has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of SST Software, including Raven’s ownership stake. Proagrica is a dominant player in Australia and the UK, and has a significant footprint in Europe and South Africa.

Netherlands-based Proagrica has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of SST Software, including Raven’s 25% ownership stake. Proagrica is a dominant player in Australia and the UK, and has a significant footprint in Europe and South Africa.

SST Software CEO Matt Waits indicated that the company will continue to operate independently.

Graeme McCracken, Managing Director at Proagrica, cited three priniciple reasons for the acquisition: solid software solutions already in the market, a vast amount of field data already in place, and the AgX platform, which he called a powerful and unique system.

In its key markets, Proagrica has emphasized creating data compatibility across myriad platforms and systems, something it hopes to help bolster here in the US.